BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 95 of 142

Correct — C, State Legislative Assemblies. The stem sets a two-part test, and the second part is a negative — the booklet prints 'but not forum for his impeachment' with the negation emphasised, an emphasis that does not survive into plain text, so read the words rather than the look of them. Part one is Article 54: 'The President shall be elected by the members of an electoral college consisting of — (a) the elected members of both Houses of Parliament; and (b) the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the States', with an Explanation inserted by the Seventieth Amendment Act, 1992 extending 'State' to the National Capital Territory of Delhi and Puducherry. Part two is Article 61: a charge for violation of the Constitution 'shall be preferred by either House of Parliament', on fourteen days' notice signed by not less than one-fourth of the total members of that House and passed by not less than two-thirds of its total membership; the other House then investigates, and if it too passes such a resolution by two-thirds of its total membership the President is removed from that date. Impeachment is therefore entirely a parliamentary process. Put the two provisions side by side and only one body satisfies both halves of the stem: the State Legislative Assemblies are named in the electoral college by Article 54 and appear nowhere in Article 61. Note also that UPSC put this identical question in 1996 and its published key names State Legislative Assemblies, the same text that stands at option (C) here — independent corroboration of the constitutional point, though not evidence about this Commission's own key, which was never published.

• (a)Rajya Sabha — Passes the first half of the test and fails the second, which is exactly what the question is checking. Its elected members are in the electoral college under Article 54(a), and it is fully a forum for impeachment under Article 61 — it may prefer the charge, or investigate a charge preferred by the Lok Sabha. Note the asymmetry within the House itself: its twelve nominated members cannot vote in the presidential election, because Article 54 says 'elected members', but they count towards the two-thirds of total membership that Article 61 requires.
• (b)Lok Sabha — Fails in the same way. Its elected members vote in the presidential election under Article 54(a), and under Article 61 either House may prefer the charge and the other must investigate it, so the Lok Sabha is squarely an impeachment forum. A candidate who reads only the first half of the stem will find both Houses qualifying and be unable to choose between them, which is the trap the negation exists to set.
• (d)State Legislative Councils — Fails the first half instead of the second. Article 54(b) counts only the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the States; the Councils, which exist in only a handful of states — Bihar has one — are left out entirely, and so are nominated MLAs. Since a Council is in neither the electoral college nor the impeachment forum, it cannot be the body that is in one but not the other.

The Constitution builds the presidency out of a deliberate asymmetry: the States help choose the President but have no say in removing him. Election is federal by design. Article 55 requires 'as far as practicable' uniformity in the scale of representation of the different States, and parity between the States as a whole and the Union. It achieves both arithmetically: each elected MLA has as many votes as there are multiples of one thousand in the state's population divided by the number of elected members of its Assembly, with a remainder of five hundred or more adding one; each elected MP then has a number of votes equal to the total value of all the MLAs' votes divided by the total number of elected members of both Houses. Because the two totals are made equal by construction, the States collectively carry exactly the same weight as Parliament. Voting is by proportional representation with a single transferable vote and by secret ballot. The 'population' in that formula is not the current one — an Explanation added by amendment freezes it at the 1971 census until the figures of the first census taken after 2026 are published. Removal, by contrast, is exclusively parliamentary, and the reason is that impeachment is a quasi-judicial trial for violation of the Constitution rather than a referendum: a compact, self-regulating body has to conduct it.

Solve this by drawing a two-column table in your head — in the electoral college, yes or no; a forum for impeachment, yes or no — and filling in all four options before choosing. Rajya Sabha: yes, yes. Lok Sabha: yes, yes. State Legislative Assemblies: yes, no. State Legislative Councils: no, no. Only one row reads yes-then-no, and that is the answer the stem is describing. The habit generalises to every 'which one is X but not Y' item in polity, and it is the only reliable defence against the failure mode this question is built around, which is stopping as soon as an option satisfies the first condition. Two refinements are worth carrying. First, the word 'elected' does real work in Article 54: nominated members of either House and nominated members of a State Assembly are outside the electoral college, but nominated MPs do count in the total membership on which Article 61's two-thirds is computed, so the same person can be barred from the election and required for the removal. Second, no President of India has ever been impeached, so the whole of Article 61 remains untested in practice — which is precisely why examiners like it: the answer can only come from the text.

• Article 54: the electoral college consists of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the States; the Explanation inserted by the Seventieth Amendment Act, 1992 brings in the National Capital Territory of Delhi and Puducherry.
• Article 61: the charge is preferred by either House on at least fourteen days' notice signed by not less than one-fourth of that House's total members, and must be passed by not less than two-thirds of its total membership; the other House then investigates and must pass a like resolution by two-thirds of its total membership.
• Article 55: election is by proportional representation with a single transferable vote and by secret ballot; the value of an MLA's vote is the state population divided by the number of elected Assembly members, divided by one thousand, and the MPs' votes are then scaled so that Parliament and the States carry equal weight.
• The 'population' used in that calculation is frozen at the 1971 census until the figures of the first census taken after the year 2026 are published — so the vote values in force today rest on figures more than half a century old.
• Legislative Councils have no role in either process; only some states have one, and a Council can be created or abolished by Parliament under Article 169 on a resolution of the concerned Legislative Assembly.

• Answering on the first half of the stem. Both Houses of Parliament are in the electoral college, so the question is decided entirely by the negative half about impeachment.
• Treating 'State Legislature' as one thing. Article 54 names the Legislative Assemblies only; Legislative Councils are excluded from the electoral college altogether.
• Forgetting the word 'elected'. Nominated members of either House do not vote for the President, but they are part of the total membership against which Article 61's two-thirds majority is measured.

BPSC asks the comparison directly and in one line, with the whole difficulty carried by a negation the candidate has to notice — and on this re-examination of January 2025 it did so with wording lifted almost intact from an old UPSC paper. UPSC's own modern habit on the presidency is the statement set: two or three propositions about Article 54, Article 61 or the value of the vote, with the mark going to whoever can mark each one separately rather than recognise a familiar sentence.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 54 of the Constitution, the electoral college for the election of the President consists of

  • (a)All members of both Houses of Parliament and all members of the State Legislatures
  • (b)The elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies
  • (c)The elected members of both Houses of Parliament only
  • (d)The elected members of both Houses of Parliament and of both Houses of every State Legislature

  Answer(b) The elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies — with Delhi and Puducherry included by the Explanation added in 1992. Nominated members and Legislative Councils are excluded.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A resolution preferring a charge for the impeachment of the President under Article 61 must be passed by

  • (a)A simple majority of the members present and voting
  • (b)A majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting
  • (c)A majority of not less than two-thirds of the total membership of the House
  • (d)A majority of the total membership of the House and two-thirds of those present and voting

  Answer(c) A majority of not less than two-thirds of the total membership of the House — after at least fourteen days' notice in writing signed by not less than one-fourth of that House's total members.